Thief: Pilot

Nick Atwater is having a bad day. You would be too if you happened to be a professional thief in the middle of a multi-million dollar heist who gets a call from his wife to let him know that his step-daughter has been arrested. I can't imagine talking to a cop while standing in a giant safe that you just cracked is a very comforting feeling. But as I said, Nick Atwater (played by Andre Braugher) is a professional and he handles the situation as such. Of course, matters aren't helped when your crew is a bunch of greedy hotheads who don't seem to mind stealing more than you came for. Did I mention that one of them has a raging coke habit that almost gets them caught? Didn't have to, because what else did I say? Nick Atwater is having a bad day.

F/X's new series Thief seems like it's going to be showing Nick Atwater having plenty of bad days. I hope so, because if everything went smoothly for this guy, Thief would not be any good at all. However, that isn't the case because the pilot episode of Thief was one helluva good hour spent in front of the TV.

How could it get any worse? Well the second Nick and his crew stole all those extra Benjamins (there's some monetary slang I haven't heard in about five years), you knew it wasn't going to bode well. And it didn't. Owner of said Benjamins? Try the Chinese mob. Nick's financier Roselyn (well played by Linda Hamilton) wisely forces Nick's hand into returning the funds and keeping only the jewels as planned. But Roselyn doesn't cover her tracks all that well because the mob knows where the money was sent from: New Orleans. Nick and Co. should be expecting visitors next week.

How could it get any worse? Try dealing with all the aforementioned craziness and then finding out that your wife died from complications sustained in a car accident. Then pile on your direct involvement with the shooting death of an ex-crew member right in your backyard while your now motherless step-daughter watches it all from a bedroom window. Now that I've gone through all this, Nick Atwater is definitely having a bad day the worst day ever.

There's still one more bigger heist for Nick and his guys to tackle. But they're going to have to watch out for the Chinese mob and the local cop who runs with them. Not to mention the weak conscience that Nick's precious step-daughter is the proud owner of. Things like that are what won me over on Thief. Unlike all the flashiness that the pilot episode of Heist employed, Thief was very gritty, dark, and felt much more realistic. Granted the pacing was slow at parts, but every interaction was still setting up future decisions or adding to a character. No time was wasted in either regard. Something I find even more exciting is the fact that F/X is only sampling this show with a very short five (it might be six) episode season. From here on out, I don't see any installments being a letdown. No heist is worth dying for and for the next four weeks, this is the only show on Tuesdays at 10 that's worth watching.

This is a promising show, I will watch it until the Shield returns. I agree this is more realistic than Heist, which was a TV version of Oceans Eleven. I see a lot of borrowing from the Shield. They stole from ruthless foreign gangsters (Shield - Armenians; Thief - Chinese). They have a close team with all the team dynamics. Both are anchored by strong lead characters played by a talented actors (Chiklis, and Braugher). The twist is that the Shield has corrupt cops with their own moral code, and this has super-disciplined robbers.

Very well written! Thief is absolutely amazing. Yes, it not The Shield but come on, The Shield is very hard to live up to just as no sitcom has caught up with Seinfeld yet. With all that has happened and so many that hasn't happened, I would say the writers can really make this show work with some good stories. I love AB from back in Homicide: Life in the Streets and think her is perfect for this role.

Thief is something I look forward to looking at every week I cant wait for the next episode to air. It gives me the excitment and thrill like another of FX series, Nip and Tuck Keep up the good work and suspense.

This show didn't leave me shaken and crazed like the series premiere of The Shield, but I'm definitely feeling it. I love FX and haven't been disappointed yet. They only put solid, amazing material on the screen, so I'll watch and see what develops, for sure.